


the farther I fall I'm beside you

by therealw



Category: The Social Network (2010)
Genre: Angst, Fix-It, M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, Pining, Post-Canon, Post-Movie, Post-Settlement, boys working out their feelings, deposition-era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-24 23:52:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6171730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therealw/pseuds/therealw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Mark, for the first time ever, actually listens to what a lawyer has to say.</p><p>
  <i>"You know what we're here for?" Marylin continues before he can interrupt, "I mean, what this really feels like?"</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	the farther I fall I'm beside you

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'we're in this together' by NIN. 
> 
> For M.

Marylin Delpy walks slowly into the cold board room where she's spent most of the past week. The youngest billionaire alive is sitting at the conference table, hunched over the laptop in front of him, typing furiously. With his unruly hair and a grey hoodie that has seen better days, Mark Zuckerberg doesn't look like the youngest billionaire alive. Frankly, he doesn't look like a billionaire, period. She approaches him quietly, her steps muffled by the thick carpet, but she could've been wearing bells around her ankles, he's entirely engrossed in his work.

"Fixing bugs?"

Mark looks up, startled. And perhaps also surprised that she even knows what bugs are, it's impossible to tell. "I'm picking up the lingo. My sister bought me a copy of _Programming for dummies_ when she heard I'd be sitting in on the 'Facebook case'." She can't believe she's actually using air quotes. "Her idea of a joke."

"That book sounds like total crap," he says with a disgusted grimace.

"Well, people apparently find it hilarious."

"And you didn't?"

"Sure," she deadpans. "A hilarious 400-page long inside joke I'm on the outside of."

The corner of Mark's mouth twitches. "Are you here to make sure I'm not hacking into the firm's confidential files?"

"Actually," she leans against the table with an elaborate flourish, "I'm here to entertain you."

"They've already sent three associates, food from what must be every restaurant in a two-mile radius, and hot interns every five minutes to ask whether there's anything they can do for me in a tone that might've implied actvities not suitable for a room with glass walls. I was expecting the _Cirque Du Soleil_ next."

"Sorry to disappoint."

"To be honest the trapeze doesn't really do it for me."

"That's a relief. I have a terrible fear of heights."

"Yet your heels belie that statement."

She laughs as she lets herself fall into the chair next to his. "You'll never change, will you, Mr. Zuckerberg?"

"Yeah. About that…" he trails off. "Actually, I've been thinking about what you said yesterday."

Marylin feels vaguely uncomfortable, wondering whether she overstepped the line with one of the biggest clients the firm will ever have. "Look, I'm aware it wasn't my place to- "

"No, I liked it. You were being honest. After a whole day of depositions under oath, honesty is a welcome contrast."

He pushes a few keys and abruptly turns his laptop around on the conference table, until the screen is facing Marylin. "Here." A picture of herself in a blue dress, taken last summer at her cousin Clare's wedding, smiles back at her.

"My… Facebook page?"

Mark makes an indecipherable sound. From what she's learned about him, it's probably annoyance at someone stating the obvious.

"I tweaked a couple of things. People won't be able to tag you on pictures anymore. They'll get a system error if they try. I mean, most people would find that a terrible inconvenience, but I don't think you want any of the name partners stumbling upon those Spring Break pictures that Jennifer Wilcox uploaded. She's a bitch, by the way, you should see her private messages."

"Jennif- you… you hacked into my Facebook."

"No. I couldn't _hack into_ Facebook. I _am_ Facebook."

"Oh." She's at a loss for words.

"Anyway, I also… see, if you click here," he drags the mouse until it's hovering over a link called 'IP log' Marylin is pretty sure wasn't there the last time she checked her account, "you'll find an automatic IP logging and geo tracking. Every time someone browses your profile page, your wall, whatever, their IP is recorded and tracked back to their location, and also crosschecked with registered users' IPs. There's also a blocking option next to each log." Marylin fears she's doing a pretty accurate impression of a gaping fish at this point. "Oh, and one more thing," Mark rambles on, "if you delete content it will be permanently deleted. It's something Dustin's been nagging me about doing but advertisers oppose, obviously. Anyway, if you want it gone, it will be gone."

"I… thank you." She shakes her head. "Wow. Thank you, Mark. I don't know what to say. Mainly because ninety percent of what you just said was Greek to me, but I get the gist of it, I think. And… thank you. That was very thoughtful of you."

Mark gives a little half-shrug. "I'm trying this new thing. The 'Not Being An Asshole' Project. Someone suggested I'd give it a go."

She smiles. "Good. That's… good."

There's a comfortable silence where Mark's attention returns to his laptop but his typing has a more leisurely pace. An errant pigeon is purposefully walking back and forth along the ledge, single-minded and stiff like a soldier.

"How're you holding up?," Marylin finally asks in a quiet voice.

"I'm going to assume you want me to ignore social convention and give an honest answer?" Mark sighs and sits back in his chair, abandoning his typing but keeping an eye on the screen. "The truth is… it's really fucking weird. Sometimes I just… forget about it. Like, I'd think of something I _know_ he'd find funny and turn around to share it with him and… well. I wonder whether Gretchen would physically attack me if I told a joke and Wardo laughed."

She chuckles. "Wouldn't put it past her, in all fairness."

A beat.

"It's hard to grasp. In general, I mean. It's hard to grasp that our friendship is officially over because someone put a price tag on it. Once we're done here I should sue Hallmark for all that fucking bullshit about how all the money in the world can't hold a candle to true friendship and shit. That's why you'll never be out of a job, Miss Delpy – in the end it's all about the Benjamins."

"I seriously doubt Hallmark uses Puff Daddy quotes in their cards," she deadpans and Mark gives her a tired half-smile. "Besides," Marylin leans towards him conspiratorially, "whatever corporate America may lead you to believe, people don't get this upset if it's just money."

"How much does a junior associate make here? 600 million dollars is _just money_? They're overcharging me, clearly."

"I can't tell whether you're being obnoxious for the sake of it or to avoid the question."

"Little bit of both, actually."

"I see." She can recognize her own courtroom voice and wonders when it took over.

"What does it matter, anyway?"

"Sometimes, in these past few days… it's as if you didn't even want to make him look bad."

He's avoiding her eyes.

"You wanted to stop Sy from bringing up the chicken thing, didn't you?"

Mark shrugs. "He wasn't supposed… I specifically said 'as a last resort _only_ '. I just didn't think there was any need to bring it up at that point."

"Mr. Saverin had just accused you of cheating in your final exam."

"Yes. But I _did_ cheat."

"And he did feed that chicken chicken. Which is possibly the weirdest thing I've ever said out loud."

"It's not the same thing," Mark cuts in, impatient. "Eduardo just doesn't… he's never intentionally hurt anyone else in his life. Poultry included."

"He's suing you for 600 million dollars, Mark." She doesn't sound unkind because she doesn't mean to be, she's simply being matter-of-fact.

"He's angry. And hurt."

"But not about the money, is he? A guy who can make 300 grand by watching the weather channel would rather build his own empire than have it handed to him wrapped in a big non-disclosure bow."

Mark is staring with a little too much intent at the laptop screen while absently playing with the strings of his hoodie.

"Before deciding on litigation, I considered family law," Marylin says, an apparent non-sequitur, but not really.

"So?"

She doesn't answer, waiting for Mark to look her in the eye. When he does, it's obvious he's trying to be polite and also true to his new 'Let's Not Be An Asshole' thing, probably dying to tell her to get at least within the same zip code as the point.

"You know what we're here for?" Marylin continues before he can interrupt, "I mean, what this _really_ feels like?"

She's got Mark's attention now and he probably has a vague idea of what she's getting at, genius and all. "Please don't say a divorce settlement."

"I won't."

"Thinking the words as loudly as you are right now counts too."

"There are a million bullet-proof ways to screw yourself over, but one of the fastest is cheating on your wife when you don't have a prenup."

"Wardo'd be thrilled to know he's the jilted wife in this scenario."

"Actually, he's more like the jilted wife who paid for your winning Powerball ticket."

"I'd imagine that'd be one hell of a legal riddle to unravel."

She gestures expansively at the conference room by way of answering.

"And I didn't cheat."

"Didn't you?"

"This may be news to you, but you need to be in a relationship with someone in order to cheat on them. Eduardo was dating someone else at the time; please do try to keep up with those minutes."

"Someone _else_?" She raises her eyebrows to get her point across.

Mark reaches for one of the legal pads and pens on the table and starts doodling from the corner upwards. "I didn't mean it like that."

"Of course not." Her courtroom voice again.

"And I didn't cheat." He's now drawing what looks like a Rubik cube, stabbing the legal pad as if it had personally offended him.

"First, you mean."

He abandons the Rubik cube. "What?"

"You mean that you didn't cheat _first_."

Mark drops the pen but doesn't look up at her. "No one cheated at any time. No relationship, no cheating."

"Okay."

Mark takes up the pen again but doesn't resume his drawing, just keeps his hand poised an inch above the paper. "That's not what happened," he says and abruptly wheels the chair around to face Marylin, pen pointing at her face accusingly. "That's _not_ what happened _at all_. You don't-" he trails off and purses his lips. It's unclear whether he doesn't know how to follow or he's trying to stop the words from spilling out.

Marylin leans back in her chair.

"I d— we didn't. It wasn't like that. It wasn't."

"Fine." She shrugs and laces her fingers in her lap. "How was it, then?"

"Complicated. It still is. Absurdly complicated." Mark pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. "Why are you so fixated on this, anyway?"

"I specialize in—"

"Voir dire, I know. You said. Yesterday." Two non-sequiturs in as many minutes is more than his newly-tested politeness can take, obviously.

"Yes. You're a hard guy to read, Mark."

"So I've been told." He sounds sarcastic but not bitter. A beat, and then, "Why?" He's staring straight at her. "What gave it away?" Well. There's a lot to be said about Mark Zuckerberg, but you can't accuse him of beating around the bush.

"Something just didn't add up. And since money was already off the table…"

"The only primary motivation for human behavior left was sex?"

She shrugs. "You could call it a hunch, I suppose. I'm still figuring out when to trust those."

"If I'm used as practice material, does this mean your hours are for free?"

"My hours are for free regardless, Mr. Zuckerberg. I'm just here to listen and learn."

"And it's fair to say you did, I'll be sure to drop a good word with Sy," he retorts. "It's kind of poetic, though. An army of battle-scarred lawyers and the one it first occurs to is the rookie who passed her Bar last Friday."

"Well, I'm the only one who's not blinded by something starting with 'success' and ending with 'fee', I guess."

"An impartial observer?"

"And a girl, on top of that."

Mark snorts. He's still playing with the strings of his hoodie, curling and uncurling them around his index finger, back and forth, back and forth. After a while, he adds, "They just didn't ask. Not that perjury isn't appealing, but no one ever even suggested the notion, not even to throw either of us off."

"Well. Aren't you glad this didn't come up in a trial?"

"I admit it might've granted my profile an added assholery bonus."

"Pretty much," she concedes. "The last nail in the coffin of the jury's sympathy."

"Although it might've been worth it just to see Eduardo's face at being described as a jilted ex-wife in front of a federal court." Mark half-smiles, probably picturing the scene in his head.

"Devising creative methods of hypothetical humiliation is not the best way of winning someone back, though."

"Who says I want him back?" he says, a little too quickly.

Marylin just gives him a pointed look instead of answering.

"Is this the girly spidey sense or the voir dire expert talking?"

"Both."

"Ah."

" _Ah_."

They stay silent for a while, long enough that Mark's laptop starts displaying the screensaver, an endlessly spinning Facebook logo.

"He'd say yes, you know," Marylin says suddenly, her bluntness surprising even herself a little.

"What?"

"It's all in the eyes." In for a penny and all that.

"The Bambi eyes?" Mark blurts out, unthinking, and Marylin snorts.

"You actually call them that?"

Mark buries his hands in the pockets of his grey hoodie and slouches even deeper into his chair. "Not to his _face_ ," he mumbles.

Marylin decides to let it slide. "Anyway. I'm sure you've noticed he can't stop staring at you with those…," she can't help smiling, "…with the Bambi eyes?" Mark makes a non-committal noise. "Well. Half the time he looked as if all he wanted in the world was for you to say 'Eduardo, I'm really, _really_ sorry for messing up. Let's move in together and live happily ever after'."

At Mark's dubious look, she follows up with, "I do get paid a lot of money for reading people, remember? Believe me. He'd take you back in a heartbeat."

Marylin stares quietly at the spinning Facebook logo for a minute.

"And the other half?" Mark says.

"What?"

"You said half of the time he looked as if he wanted me to apologize. What about the other half?"

Marylin smiles wistfully. "Like he can't believe he's still in love with such an asshole."

She doesn't add anything else, letting it sink in. By now Mark has slid so low in his chair his head is barely above the edge of the table.

The moment's broken as Sy pushes open the glass doors, marching in with his game face on.

"Show time," she says and winks at Mark.

:::

In the end, Sy does go with the speeding ticket angle. Mark spaces out and starts thinking about how many speeding tickets 724.4 million dollars and 5% of Facebook equal to, depending on how fast you were driving and which state you were caught in.

In his peripheral vision, Marylin keeps fidgeting in her chair and staring at him. She’s probably still wondering whether she overstepped a line and if honesty will cost her her job. Not really an unfounded fear for a corporate lawyer. It’ll be a few more years of billionaire clients until she learns just how rare a commodity it is to have people in your payroll who dare speak their minds.

Maybe he should hire her. It’s not every day that someone gets through to him, and even though he doesn’t have the time or inclination to place blame, he can appreciate the irony of a semi-stranger giving him food for thought the way she had yesterday. He really should be focusing on the glitch in the new notes app, but instead he’s been obsessively analyzing their conversation. And by extension, obsessively analyzing his whole perspective on Eduardo and their relationship. Although the truth is, they really weren’t in a relationship. A lot of drunken fumbling and more physical contact than someone with serious interaction and intimacy issues should feel comfortable with do not equal a relationship. He doesn’t even know if Eduardo really was in love with him, or… well. That’s a lie, actually. Sort of like when he tells himself he doesn’t know what he felt in return.

The thing is, Eduardo is a nice guy. That’s his whole problem in a nutshell. A nice guy who feels he has to date the first girl to ever give him a blowjob in a bathroom stall and turn her into a serious girlfriend.

Mark has never been a nice guy and wouldn’t know how to be, either. Sean would probably say he’s rich enough to hire someone to be nice for him.

And now he’s hit a dead end. Mark really, really hates those. But at least he knows how to fix this particular one.

“… and to remind you there’s an added clause in the non-disclosure agreement, concer— Mr. Zuckerberg? Do you need anything?”

Mark looks down at his lawyers’ expectant faces and realizes he must have gotten to his feet without noticing.

“Restroom,” he mumbles and makes a beeline for the door.

It doesn’t take long to find the right conference room. This one is lined floor to ceiling with wooden bookshelves and looks a little less aseptic than the one they’ve been locked in all week. Mark briefly wonders whether that was intentional.

Thankfully, Eduardo is alone, standing next to the huge window and staring out at the vast expanse of Silicon Valley. Or what little of it can be seen though the smog.

“Wardo.”

Eduardo is so startled he physically jumps. Mark hadn’t known people could do that in real life.

“We need to talk.”

“Mr. Saverin, here’s your—”

Mark turns around to see one of Eduardo’s younger attorneys carrying a lidded paper cup. Interesting. His lawyers never offer to do Starbucks runs for him unless they’re going anyway.

“You really shouldn’t be here, Mark,” Eduardo says in a tired voice. Mark notices for the first time the dark circles under his eyes, how utterly exhausted he looks, wonders if he, too, looks as tired as he feels.

“I need to talk to you.”

“We’re about to sign, Mark, I’m not dropping the suit.”

“What? No. That’s not what I’m here for.”

“Mr. Zuckerberg,” Gretchen says from behind him. Her little lackey must’ve run to fetch her. “Does anyone know you’re here?”

“Take a wild guess,” he answers without sparing a glance at her, eyes fixed on Eduardo. “I need to talk to you. And it has nothing to do with the settlement.”

“Mark. We… there’s nothing for us to talk about besides the settlement.”

“Fine.”

“What?”

Mark turns on his heel and marches out of the room all the way back to his lawyers.

“Give me the settlement.”

“Excuse me?” Sy is gaping at him as if Mark had lost his mind. From his perspective, he probably has.

“I said give me the settlement. Both copies. And a pen.”

“Mr. Zuckerberg. Mark. We still need to go through clauses 41.3 to 65—”

“The courier did reach my house yesterday, Sy, and I did read the final draft. I hereby assure you there is nothing in it I seriously object to, unless we’re counting your truly appalling punctuation. I’m ready to sign.”

It’s ridiculous, how much negotiating it takes him to snatch the damn thing from Sy’s hands. Finally, he strides out of the room carrying his prize, legal army trailing after him. 

Eduardo is wearing the exasperated expression Mark’s become used to since the lawsuit began. Beside him, Gretchen looks as if she’s having trouble reminding herself that a battery conviction would ruin her career.

Mark signs both copies and pushes them on the mahogany table. They slide dramatically across the polished surface. Eduardo signs too, Gretchen’s hand steady on his shoulder. Mark can’t tell whether she’s aiming for comforting or preventing Eduardo from balking at the last minute.

“So. Can we talk now?”

“I see your ability to demand complete dedication from others while giving nothing in return hasn’t changed.”

“I just gave you over half a billion dollars and 5% of my company, Eduardo. I think that grants five minutes of your time.”

Eduardo runs a hand through his hair, exasperated. “You’ve owned _years_ of my life, Mark. And it’s _our_ fucking company!” He holds up a hand. “And if you mention the settlement amount again, so help me God I will punch you.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Five minutes. Please.”

Mark can tell Eduardo wants to say no. He can see it in the set of his jaw, the tension in his shoulders. But they both know he never was very good at refusing Mark anything. And so he knows instinctively when Eduardo’s given in, from all his previous experience with Eduardo giving in to whatever Mark asked of him. There’s a feeling in his gut surprisingly similar to guilt accompanying that thought. 

“You’re not letting this go, are you?”

Mark is never sure whether he’s supposed to answer other people’s rhetorical questions. Eventually, Eduardo sighs and politely asks everyone else in the room to leave. Once they’re alone, he does one of those complicated hand waves as a cue for Mark to speak.

“I don’t know why I did it,” Mark says.

“What?”

“I mean, they talked me into the dilution, sure. Peter, Sean and the lawyers. And they made a perfectly sound argument, of course. But I still don’t know why I let them persuade me. I felt… you were pulling away and I wanted… I wanted to prove to you I didn’t need you.”

Mark pauses and licks his lips.

“But I did.” Another pause. “I still do. There’s no one… no one I can really trust. I have to make all these decisions on a daily basis and I just—”

“I don’t know the first thing about programming, Mark,” Eduardo interrupts. “I’m sure Dustin could help you if you just—”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. I want— Dustin’s not— _you_ should be there. With me. That’s what I wanted. _Want_. And it’s… it’s unsettling to need something so badly from another person.”

“There’s so much I could answer to that,” Eduardo says in a flat monotone.

“You could… if you wished, you could come back. It doesn’t have to be a full-time thing, you could just sit on the board or—”

“Mark.”

“—or as a Senior Advisor or something, and—”

“Mark!”

Mark finally shuts up.

“Why are we really here?”

“What?”

“I somehow doubt that you were so desperate to talk to me because you wanted to hire me as an external consultant.”

“No. Well, yes. That too. But no.”

Eduardo waits.

“I wanted you to listen to my side of the story without eight other people in the room and a stenographer keeping record.”

“You think if you explain quite clearly why you acted the way you did I’ll have no option but to forgive you?”

“Well… yes. That’s it, exactly,” Mark says, because it is. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised Eduardo can still read him better than anyone else in his life.

“If it took me that long to understand your reasons wasn’t because I didn’t know you well enough, Mark, it was because I didn’t really want to come to terms with the answer.” He meets Mark’s eyes and his whole demeanor suddenly changes. “I know you better than anyone else, you fucker.” A beat. “Except maybe your mother.”

Eduardo had met Mark’s parents once. They had stopped at Cambridge while on their way to a medical conference in Boston in the spring of Mark’s freshman year. That was the official version, at least. Mark had suspected his mother just wanted to check up on him. The four of them had gone out to dinner together, and Mark’s mother had loved Eduardo. _Loved_ him. To the point that she’d started asking about him in each and every one of their Sunday evening calls. (‘ _How’s Eduardo doing? Has he found a nice Jewish girl yet?_ ’) Mark still wonders sometimes whether she had guessed, or if there’s some sort of professional blindness when it comes to one’s own children.

“So it took me a long time,” Eduardo continues, “but I came to understand why you believed you were doing the right thing.” His shoulders slump dejectedly. “It was the best for Facebook. That’s all there was to it. You never… it didn’t have anything to do with me. I didn’t even factor into the equation.” His voice is barely above a whisper now. “And that’s why I can’t forgive you, Mark.”

“But you just said—”

Eduardo sighs. “I know this is way more irrationality than you can deal with, but the thing I can’t get past, why I was so angry, was because when push came to shove, you loved Facebook more than me. Or… well. You loved Facebook. It doesn’t really matter to you that Facebook can’t love you back.”

Mark is speechless.

Eduardo laughs, his eyes a little too wide, like a madman’s. “How can you _possibly_ be surprised?”

“I’m surprised you’ve said it out loud.”

“You’re right. I should’ve waited until the next drunken handjob on the stairs of Widener Library at 4 am.”

Mark shuffles his feet. “This is uncomfortable.”

“You were the one who insisted we talked.” Eduardo is leaning against the window now. From where Mark stands, it looks as if he was about to dive backwards into the valley.

“To be honest, this isn’t quite how I envisioned it.”

“No?” Eduardo sounds more amused than angry. Mark shoots him a murderous look. “Listen, Mark. I’m sorry, but I’m just… not ready to forgive you yet.”

A long pause. “Okay.”

“Well, th--”

“But can you give me a timeframe?” Mark cuts him off. “An estimation of how long you’ll need?”

“What?”

“Are we talking weeks? Months? Years? All I need is a ballpark figure.”

“Forgiving the guy y— the best friend who stabbed you in the back is not like doing your taxes, Mark. It doesn’t work with neat timeframes and fixed deadlines.”

Mark wouldn’t know. He’s never actively worked at forgiving anyone. He’s never done his own taxes, either.

“I don’t want us to end like this.”

“At the risk of sounding glib, shouldn’t you have considered that before screwing me out of my own company?”

Mark can’t really answer that in any way that wouldn’t ruin the purpose of this conversation, so he remains silent.

Eduardo sighs deeply and puts his hands on his hips. He’s giving Mark a long, stern look, the kind that in the old days always preceded physically dragging Mark away from his coding and forcing instant noodles and/or sleep on him.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t give you what you wanted from me today, Mark,” he says in an even tone. “First time for everything, right?” It doesn’t really come across as a joke.

Eduardo turns to leave but another hand reaches the doorknob before his. “Wait,” Mark says. Eduardo stills but doesn’t turn around, lets his forehead fall against the black panelled wood instead.

“Can I email you?”

“Mark—”

“Wardo. You don’t have to email me back. Just… can I email you.”

Beyond the door, the usual bustling of the firm sounds both very far away and impossibly loud in contrast to the drawn-out silence between them. Finally, Eduardo reaches for the doorknob, hand lingering an inch above Mark’s for a long moment, and gives a brief nod, slight but unmistakeable. Mark steps back, letting him go.

He stands there, staring at the closed door, until his lawyers come to get him.

:::

 ** _From:_** 'Mark Zuckerberg' - thezuck@admin.facebook.com  
**_To:_** 'Eduardo Saverin' - e.saverin@gmail.com

_I’ve realized we didn’t set any terms for admissible email topics._

.

 ** _From:_** 'Mark Zuckerberg' - thezuck@admin.facebook.com  
**_To:_** 'Eduardo Saverin' - e.saverin@gmail.com

_So I’ll just go ahead and say whatever I want, then._

.

 ** _From:_** 'Mark Zuckerberg' - thezuck@admin.facebook.com  
**_To:_** 'Eduardo Saverin' - e.saverin@gmail.com

_Don’t say I didn’t warn you._

.

 ** _From:_** 'Mark Zuckerberg' - thezuck@admin.facebook.com  
**_To:_** 'Eduardo Saverin' - e.saverin@gmail.com

_By the way, I did mean the consultant offer, you know._

.

 ** _From:_** 'Mark Zuckerberg' - thezuck@admin.facebook.com  
**_To:_** 'Eduardo Saverin' - e.saverin@gmail.com

_Or, if you prefer, Dustin’s secretary quit this morning. I’ll even put in a good word, praise your coffee-brewing skills._

.

 ** _From:_** 'Mark Zuckerberg' - thezuck@admin.facebook.com  
**_To:_** 'Eduardo Saverin' - e.saverin@gmail.com

_I’m starting to feel stupid, talking to myself without any idea of whether you’re listening. Reading. Whatever._

.

 ** _From:_** 'Eduardo Saverin' - e.saverin@gmail.com  
**_To:_** 'Mark Zuckerberg' - thezuck@admin.facebook.com

_So now you know how I felt 99% of the time when I talked to you._

.

 ** _From:_** 'Mark Zuckerberg' - thezuck@admin.facebook.com  
**_To:_** 'Eduardo Saverin' - e.saverin@gmail.com

_I’m beginning to understand that now._

.  
**_From:_** 'Eduardo Saverin' - e.saverin@gmail.com  
**_To:_** 'Mark Zuckerberg' - thezuck@admin.facebook.com

_I’ll go with the obvious and say better late than never._

.

 ** _From:_** 'Mark Zuckerberg' - thezuck@admin.facebook.com  
**_To:_** 'Eduardo Saverin' - e.saverin@gmail.com

_If we’re talking again, does it mean you’ve forgiven me?_

.

 ** _From:_** 'Eduardo Saverin' - e.saverin@gmail.com  
**_To:_** 'Mark Zuckerberg' - thezuck@admin.facebook.com

_It means we’re talking again._

.

 ** _From:_** 'Mark Zuckerberg' - thezuck@admin.facebook.com  
**_To:_** 'Eduardo Saverin' - e.saverin@gmail.com

_Is this like when you thought playing poker would teach me patience?_

.

 ** _From:_** 'Eduardo Saverin' - e.saverin@gmail.com  
**_To:_** 'Mark Zuckerberg' - thezuck@admin.facebook.com

_And look how well that turned out._

.

 ** _From:_** 'Mark Zuckerberg' - thezuck@admin.facebook.com  
**_To:_** 'Eduardo Saverin' - e.saverin@gmail.com

_I sent Erica a friends request yesterday, wrote in some new code so she’ll actually have to accept._

.

 ** _From:_** 'Eduardo Saverin' - e.saverin@gmail.com  
**_To:_** 'Mark Zuckerberg' - thezuck@admin.facebook.com

_I thought the whole point of facebook was that no one could reject you as a friend._

_But, as much as it pains me to say, that was strangely thoughtful of you._

.

 ** _From:_** 'Mark Zuckerberg' - thezuck@admin.facebook.com  
**_To:_** 'Eduardo Saverin' - e.saverin@gmail.com

_Do you think people can change?_

.

 ** _From:_** 'Eduardo Saverin' - e.saverin@gmail.com  
**_To:_** 'Mark Zuckerberg' - thezuck@admin.facebook.com

_I think they can try._

_My flight leaves in five hours, I’d better get some sleep._

_Good night, Mark._

:::

In name, Eduardo works as an emerging market analyst at the structured derivatives floor at JPMorgan, but the truth is that his job mainly consists of making sure the hedge fund guys’ world-shattering ideas are actually viable and not just delusions product of too much coke and/or their over-inflated egos.

Besides the fact that after the agreement he wouldn’t ever need to work if he felt so inclined, it obviously isn’t his dream job, but it forces him out of bed every morning and gives him something to think about besides Mark and Facebook. Two perfectly valid reasons by themselves. The main motivation to take the job in the first place, however, had been the undeniably great offer from the Miami branch of the Banco Central that had his father’s hand written all over it. He had politely declined, arguing he had already given his word to JPMorgan, which technically wasn’t even a lie. He _had_. Five minutes before, sure, but no one needed to know that. 

It’s sunny when he steps out of the office for lunch. Yellowish leaves are starting to sprinkle the Park Avenue sidewalks. His personal Blackberry vibrates in his pocket and he hurriedly takes it out to find a new email from Mark. It’s probably unhealthy, he knows, to continue this four-month-long conversation. He’s never going to move on if he doesn’t sever all ties with Mark. His last girlfriend, a pretty red-headed futures trader at GAM he’d first met at an art opening, dumped him barely a month in because she was ‘too old to waste her time competing with idealized ex-girlfriends’. Her words. He’d laughed at that, mostly because for a surreal moment he’d considered pointing out to her that his idealized ex-girlfriend was in fact the only one of TIME’s most influential CEOs who regularly wears Adidas flip-flops to the office. 

**_From:_** 'Mark Zuckerberg' - thezuck@admin.facebook.com  
**_To:_** 'Eduardo Saverin' - e.saverin@gmail.com

_I’m considering donating to some platform that promotes the rights of chickens in California.Of course, it’d be on behalf of Eduardo Saverin, Poultry Rights Advocate. Just so you know._

Eduardo stands in the middle of the sidewalk, laughing like a madman for a solid minute, but thankfully this is New York, so not a single passer-by even glances his way. Just as he’s hitting ‘ _reply_ ’, another email comes in.

 ** _From:_** 'Mark Zuckerberg' - thezuck@admin.facebook.com  
**_To:_** 'Eduardo Saverin' - e.saverin@gmail.com

_Too soon?_

Eduardo starts typing _’Nah’_ , and as he does, he realizes he means it.

:::

The fireworks are slowly winding down, the water blackening again after an hour of reflecting every color imaginable. In the distance, Miami Beach looks like a gigantic floating ball of light. It's one of Eduardo’s favorite memories, watching the New Year’s Eve fireworks from the pier in front of his house. 

“Are you emo now?” Someone calls from behind him and he turns to find his little sister, champagne glass in hand. “Sozinho no ano novo, staring at the water?”

“Go to hell, midget.”

She predictably ignores him and plonks herself on the pier next to him, taking off her stilettos at the same time.

“Was he too… you know?” she finally asks, bumping their shoulders together.

He doesn’t answer. “Hey, talk to me.” He still doesn’t answer. She sighs. “Eduardo, he means well, a Mãe tem muita saudad--“

“Por favor. Don’t.”

She rests her head on his shoulder. “What’s so wrong with missing you?”

“Nothing. Sorry. Nothing. I just… não quero falar sobre isso, okay? Can’t we just... talk about something else?”

“Are you happy, at least? You seem happier than the last time you came home.”

“I’m… happier. Yes.” And he is, even though he doesn’t want to examine too closely why that is. As if on cue to provide nosy sisters with gossip fodder, his cell beeps with an incoming message. _happy new year, wardo. if you never hear from me again, blame dustin’s dubious taste in party venues. how long until I can sneak back home and watch futurama reruns, you think?_

“Ooooh… so there _is_ someone!” She sounds positively evil, and he realizes his idiotic grin just gave him away.

“I… don’t know yet,” he says truthfully.

“Okay, fine. Be that way. But you better keep me posted, viu?”

Eduardo nods and kisses the top of her head.

As soon as he’s alone again, he replies. _If I hear you’ve been at the office making sure the servers don’t crash from too much traffic, I’ll send your mother on you. Happy New Year, Mark._

:::

It’s a rainy Wednesday when Eduardo’s doorman hands him a thick envelope with the Facebook logo in the corner.

Inside there’s a copy of the shareholders meeting announcement he already received last week, and another smaller envelope. When he opens it, a business card from NetJets flutters out. The content of the letter is short and to the point (‘ _Dear Mr.Saverin, we kindly request you to contact our offices to arrange the details for your upcoming flight to San Francisco at your earliest convenience_ ’) but he still needs to reread it three times to understand why they’re even contacting him.

He drops everything on the kitchen counter and pours himself a whiskey. There are an embarrassing number of discarded drafts in his recycle bin by the time he settles on,

 ** _From:_** 'Eduardo Saverin' - e.saverin@gmail.com  
**_To:_** 'Mark Zuckerberg' - thezuck@admin.facebook.com

_Do you regularly fly in all shareholders?_

The answer arrives before Eduardo has had the time to put away his Blackberry.

 ** _From:_** 'Mark Zuckerberg' - thezuck@admin.facebook.com  
**_To:_** 'Eduardo Saverin' - e.saverin@gmail.com

_Only the ones I actually want to show up._

:::

Mark hates shareholder meetings. Well, he hates all meetings in general, but he particularly hates these because a) they drag on endlessly for no reason, b) there’s a lot of business talk he isn’t really interested in, and c) among the many apparently unavoidable formalities before the actual meeting begins, the names and percentages of all shareholders are listed out loud. Possibly it’s all in his head, but he can feel the air in the room change when Eduardo’s name comes up – the sideway glances and polite coughs and generalized fidgeting are pretty hard to explain away otherwise. Mark really, _really_ would rather be doing anything else tomorrow afternoon.

Still, he’d be lying if he said that’s the only reason why he’s dreading the meeting. He knows Eduardo booked the jet for today, but in a truly impressive display of self-control he hasn’t checked if he did indeed take it. As usual, he’s spending the evening at his home office, trying to get some work done. Not that he’s succeeding. He’s rewritten the same line of code three times already by the time the land line rings.

"Mr. Zuckerberg?"

"Yes."

"I'm Ted, Sir, from the main gate?” Mark still can’t believe he has his own security detail - or a main gate, for that matter. He’d be perfectly happy renting near the Stanford Campus, but his insurance company had been quite adamant. “There's a gentleman here to see you, but his name or plate aren’t on the security clearance list, so I needed to check with you first."

"I don't really--" Mark starts saying, but at the same moment his cell springs to life on the desk, blasting out the insufferable poppy tune his secretary chose for him. Joke or subtle revenge, it's still unclear. The screen says _Eduardo_ , and he wonders... no, it can't be.

"Mr. Zuckerberg? Sir?"

"Yeah, can you... can you hold on a sec?" He picks up his cell.

“ _I thought if I rented the flashiest car on offer it would be impressive enough not to be mistaken with a potential kidnapper, but apparently I was wrong?_ ”

Later, Mark will have no recollection of the following minutes. He will know he must have said something to the security guard, he must have also mentioned adding Eduardo to the infamous list in an uncharacteristic show of wishful thinking, some time must have lapsed until he heard the noise of an approaching car in his driveway. He’ll only remember thinking a litany of ‘ _yes_ ’.

When he swings the door open, Eduardo’s hand is still reaching for the doorbell. He looks a little tired, a little nervous, a lot uncertain. His hair is dripping wet even from the short walk up the stairs, and Mark notices for the first time the rain relentlessly pouring outside. He’s hit with an overwhelming sense of déjà-vu that he’s certain has nothing to do with a neurological malfunction for once.

“Hi,” Eduardo says.

“Hi,” Mark answers and steps back to let Eduardo in. “I’ll find you a towel,” he adds as he shuts the door. He doesn’t really know where the spare towels are kept, so he grabs one from the guest bathroom instead. When he gets back, Eduardo has dropped his damp coat on one of the benches in the foyer. He dries off his hair with the towel, scrunching his eyes shut like a child. Once he’s done, he folds the towel carefully and looks at it as if he was unsure what his next move should be.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” Mark asks and takes the towel from him, just to throw it on to the bench next to the coat. Eduardo raises his eyebrows but doesn’t comment.

“Sure. Thank you.” Eduardo is looking at him funny, possibly because he’s never seen Mark behaving like a polite host before. As uncomfortable as he is with social formalities, as a big-shot CEO he’s had to learn how to convincingly fake it in the past couple of years. He spins on his heel and starts walking towards the kitchen, beckoning Eduardo to follow.

Mark wordlessly gets two beers from the fridge, opens them and hands one to Eduardo. He looks inordinately stunned, keeps glancing from Mark to the bottle and back again until he unfreezes and takes it. Mark suspects he's missing something significant here, but has no idea what.

They stare at each other across the huge kitchen island like strangers, sipping their beers to fill the gaping hole where a conversation should be.

“This is weird,” Eduardo finally says. “It really shouldn’t be this weird, should it?”

Mark gives a non-committal shrug. “I don’t know.”

Slowly, slowly, Eduardo sets his beer down and slowly, slowly makes his way around the island until he’s on Mark’s side.

“Maybe we need something stronger for this. _Cuervo_ or something,” Mark suggests and immediately regrets it when Eduardo’s shoulders slump and he visibly recoils, stepping back, away from Mark. “Wait,” he says and reaches out to grab Eduardo’s wrist. “Wait. I didn’t mean it like that. I… for courage. I meant for courage. For me.” He sighs. “You know I’m not very good at this.”

Eduardo doesn’t say anything but lets himself be tugged forward by the wrist. “I suppose that’s a bit of an understatement,” Mark adds as an afterthought.

“A bit?” Eduardo quips and he’s smiling a little. He turns his hand and slowly slides it up Mark’s forearm until he has Mark’s elbow in a firm grip.

Mark feels somewhat dizzy, as if the edges of his consciousness were slightly blurred. It’s a sensation he associates with the last stretch of a marathon coding session. He had no idea you could experience something similar without the previous forty-eight hours of sleep deprivation.

Eduardo leans forward, his ridiculous bouffant brushing Mark’s forehead. “Mark, I—” he says, and Mark kisses him. It’s wonderful and familiar and while Mark’s not surprised he can still recognize the careful, almost shy way Eduardo kisses, he realizes he’s never let himself remember it too vividly.

“Missed you,” Mark murmurs between kisses, because he has, and Eduardo pulls back slightly to look him in the eye. There’s awe and hope and something else Mark’s afraid to put a name to, and he can’t believe he hadn’t known how badly he’s missed Eduardo looking at him like that. He grabs a fistful of Eduardo’s crisp dress shirt and kisses him again. 

:::

Eduardo wakes to the feeling of warm sunlight on his face. He slowly opens one eye and sees Mark, back propped against the headboard and typing away at his laptop with one hand while drinking from a blue corporate mug with the other.

“Morning,” Eduardo says in a raspy voice.

“Morning,” Mark replies without looking at him. “Coffee? It’s still hot.” He produces a second mug seemingly out of nowhere and offers it to Eduardo, who takes it carefully, praying he’s not too sleep-addled to spill it all over the bed and themselves.

“Thank you.”

Awkward morning afters have never been something Eduardo was good at. It’s probably one of the reasons why he’s not big on one-night stands. A lifetime away, in Harvard, if they wound up in Eduardo’s room, Mark never spent the night. And on the few occasions Eduardo had passed out on Mark’s bed at Kirkland, he’d invariably wake up alone, Dustin’s usual hungover whining in the background. Knowing Mark, he’s probably mentally willing him to leave without having to actually ask him. And that’s one conversation Eduardo could _really_ live without.

“I should probably…” Eduardo says and starts pushing back the comforter.

“Wardo,” Mark calls quietly, and Eduardo stills. “The meeting doesn't start until three. Go back to sleep. We can go out later, grab lunch or something.”

Eduardo turns to stare at Mark. He’s aware he must look like a lunatic, Cheshire cat grin and crazy bed hair. He doesn’t care one bit. He slowly sets his empty mug down on the bedside table, burrows back under the covers and sleeps, his right hand resting on Mark’s pillow.

_end_


End file.
